Teen Felon Nabbed In Vegas

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

Updated on: December 13, 1999 / 5:18 AM
/ CBS

The teen-ager wanted for a string of armed robberies in Portland, Ore., has been arrested at a Las Vegas hotel. The FBI and Portland police say 18-year-old Tom Curtis was arrested without incident at the Tropicana Hotel early Thursday morning.

Curtis was the class president at one of Portland's largest high schools, and he had a scholarship to run track next year in college, reports CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes. Curtis is now under arrest for allegedly participating in 19 armed robberies at Portland businesses between November 1996 and November 1997.

He has been on the run since the last robbery went awry in November. After that holdup, his alleged accomplice, classmate Ethan Thrower, accidentally shot himself in the groin and was arrested.

Curtis was spotted last month in Mazatlan, Mexico, partying with dozens of his Grant High classmates. For the past month, Curtis had been living with a couple in Mesa, Ariz. The couple took him in and let him work at their deli. He even dated their daughter.

But after seeing Curtis on the TV program America's Most Wanted Saturday night, the couple turned him in, and police just missed him.

Curtis is being held at the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas. He's due Thursday in a Las Vegas courtroom, where extradition proceedings will begin.

"They were terrorists... They held a gun to the head of our clerk and counted and asked him if he wanted to die," said Donna Nelson, owner of the thrice-robbed Beaumont Market.

The former homecoming king will be brought back to Portland, where he faces a minimum of 7 years in prison.